This morning I walked with a girlfriend I hadn’t seen in a while, and our conversation turned almost immediately to what hurts. Her back. My neck and back. We spent the majority of our time together trading updates on our physical pain, and I remember thinking to myself about midway through that neither of us signed up to spend our time together like this, cataloguing our ailments instead of catching up on more meaningful life stuff.

We were maybe ten minutes into this riveting discussion when a girl ran past us. Young, maybe sixteen, running easy and fast with an effortless stride. We both got quiet for a moment as she passed. Neither of us said it out loud, but I know we were thinking the same thing: I want that. Not her age, necessarily. Just that. The strength and the body that simply cooperates and does what you tell it to do, without pain!

The pain I have been experiencing is being caused by a degenerative disc disease in my spine. I’ve been doing physical therapy twice a week, plus exercising on my bedroom floor most nights. I’m enduring it because I want to stay strong and avoid further damage and pain as I age. My physical therapist tells me some version of the same thing every session: we need to build capacity and strength underneath these pain points. And I’d rather fight for my body now than mourn it later. As I have been dealing with this over the past few weeks, I’ve realized that’s actually what I need for more than just my neck and back. If I am being honest, my spiritual strength can be at times just as weak and painful as my neck and back. It can be yearning for a stretch, for some rehab, yet since it does not demand my attention like physical pain does, it can be withering much more quietly.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

A few months ago, I would have read that verse very literally and without too much thought…agreeing that the body declines no matter what, so focus on the soul. But now that I have been dealing with aging and real degenerative stuff in the body, I have a different perspective. My neck and back are indeed wasting away in places however hard I work against it in that PT room. That’s just biology, and no number of exercises undoes it completely. But Paul is reminding me that more important is attention on my spiritual health. God continually refreshes and strengthens my soul if I trust in Him, walk with Him, and abide in Him. This enables me to endure hardship without losing heart (or giving up). In fact, the more I allow myself to be inwardly renewed every day in my walk with Him, the more I can endure the physical things I face. Renewal isn’t the reward waiting for me on the other side of decline. It’s happening underneath it all at the same time when I seek it through Him.

I think about my sons and their friends in our community who chase after God with a hunger that at times makes my own faith feel stifled, stiff, and even stale by comparison. They ask for prayer out loud without constraint. They raise their hands in worship without a second thought. They ask direct, unguarded questions about faith. Watching them is convicting, honestly. Somewhere between sixteen and now, I got more careful and more “composed”. Too careful and too composed. Just as I yearn for that youthful, effortless running stride, I yearn for a youthful thirst for knowledge and growth each day in Christ.

Psalm 103 says God “satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” An eagle doesn’t grow new feathers one time; it molts and regrows them time and time again throughout its entire life. Renewal, in that image, is a rhythm, something you keep needing and keep receiving, which requires a youthful, open posture and an abiding in God. I want to be thinking about and spending more time with my spiritual renewal and strengthening than I do with my physical therapy. Both are important, but only one is eternal. 

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think I’m supposed to stop fighting for my body. But I don’t want that to be the only fight I’m in. So I’m going to fight for both. As I carve out daily time for my stretches, I want to carve out time with God first—my spirit needs the stretch just as much as my legs do!  I’ll let the kids in my community, or a girl running past on an ordinary Tuesday, remind me what it looks like to go after something without constraint. Maybe that’s the real promise of “youth”: not a stage of life that you age out of, but a renewal that’s available every day if we seek it, ask for it, and abide with the One who gives it.

My friend and I will probably trade updates on our backs again next week. I’ll still do my exercises on the bedroom floor and still hope my neck and back turn a little more easily by fall. But I’d like the getting-stronger and the getting-renewed to keep happening together, with a bigger focus on the inward renewal that God offers us. 

If you’re carrying something in your body that reminds you daily of what it costs you now, I don’t think Paul is asking you to stop caring for it. I think he’s telling you something else is also true, happening in you on the very same day, that has nothing to do with what your body can or can’t do. Boldly ask God for something out loud this week, the way a kid would. See what feathers grow back!

Lord, thank You for caring for me spiritually and physically. Though I am physically wasting away, I pray you strengthen the parts that are weakening, and, even more importantly, please help renew my soul day by day. Help me to abide in Your presence and discern Your path for me. I praise you that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and thank You for being our great Physician and Healer. In Jesus’ name, I praise you for all You are and all You do, Amen.